' The appeal captioned above arises from the decision, dated 13th August, 1983 passed by the learned Presiding Officer, Punjab Labour Court No, 9, Multan, accepting the grievance petition of the respondent, directing that he be placed at serial No, 4 of the seniority list.
2. The respondent was steam raiser. He became surplus and was posted as R. T. Cooli on 25th October, 1971 instead of being terminated. Some others in the same scale were also rendered surplus and were made coolies. In seniority list of 1981 the respondent was placed at serial No, 12.
On his representation he was placed at No,
9. The learned lower Court has been impressed by the fact that the respondent was posted as R.T. Cooli on 28th October, 1971, whereas others were posted on subsequent dates. The persons mentioned at serial Nos, 4 to 8 were senior to the respondent before they were posted as cooli but this cannot be the correct deciding factor. The scale was the same and not higher, so every employee retained his seniority. Even otherwise, according to rule 601 (7) of Personnel Manual Volume-I appearing at page 227, when one has been transferred and posted in the same scale, on other post his seniority will be fixed according to the date of confirmation on the original post. The date of appointment of the respondent on the post steam raiser admittedly is subsequent to the dates of the confirmation of the incumbents mentioned between serial Nos, 4 to 8 of the last seniority list. So they will be senior to the respondent as cooli and the respondent was, therefore, rightly placed at No,
9. The learned lower Court missed the consider that all the employees coming from another post to the post of cooli on account of becoming surplus were to maintain their seniority on the original post as envisaged by rule 601 (7) (supra). In this manner the learned lower Court fell in error and its decision is not sustainable.
3. As a result, the appeal is accepted and setting aside the impugned decision of the learned lower Court, the grievance petition of the respondent is dismissed.